AH SURE AZURE

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  • Singing and Plastic

    Singing and Plastic

    Agios Markos

    10th August 2019

    Where I hear life as I lie on my bed. 

    Women calling out to one another  how are you? How are the children? Are you going swimming?

    Where at the local minimarket I  see an old woman sitting on a plastic chair in the cafe with plastic walls singing old traditional tunes with no accompaniment. Men murmur their approval when she stops and children stare fascinated wondering when they will get an ice cream or a sweet.

    Where a grandfather swings his grandchild on a plastic swing on the terrace between the lanes and sings in his lilting, rich voice a melody full of love and childish rhymes. The child joins in on the familiar words in an innocent warble to the delight of his serenader and it all ends in joy and laughter.

    Community life at the cafeneion
    Yiayias (grandmothers) talking
  • K2 in Wicklow

    K2 in Wicklow

    There was a time when Alpacas lived only on the exposed mountaintops of Peru, higher up than the highest peak on any mountain in Ireland.

    Their coats of fine fleece adapted to the bleakest of freezing and windy conditions and their hooves allowed them to roam over every type of terrain, wet or dry. Long eyelashes had the twin virtues of protecting their their eyes from sand blowing in the wind making them incredibly pretty and seductive looking.

    This weekend, I visited K2 Alpacas in their new home at Callowhill in Newtownmountkennedy, (which is beaten to the title of longest name in Ireland by Muckanaghederdauhaulia) Co Wicklow. There I met or at least saw 100 Alpaca and their cria (calves) calmly thriving on the lush Wicklow countryside.

    Incredibly the Alpaca has made Ireland their adopted home and has found their way straight in to the hearts of Irish people. Their sociable nature and laid back attitude seems to ring true with our outlook on life. They have no problem complementing our love of trekking, adding to our stock of animals and letting us fondle their soft and comforting fleece. All they need to do now is learn to play the fiddle and drink a pint of Guinness.

    The inspirational founder of K2Alpacas, Alpaca Joe, combines his knack for finer details and planning with a breadth of vision every bit as expansive as the 90 acre farm where his flock now lives. He has found an affinity with the animals he cares for that de-stresses him and he has developed for himself a new career that is about as far as can be possible from the desk bound job he knew for so many years.

    From erecting a shop in 13 days to installing toilets for customers just in time for the Open Day, the lead up to this day has been hectic by all accounts. The results are amazing including the conversion of an old barn to an Alpaca experience, the view of Peruvian mountains completely covering one wall, and the real view out the back window, of a wooded wonderland full of greens and silence and bark underfoot.

    For hundreds of years, the incredibly fine Alpaca fibre has been used in the best of suits and has been valued by herdsmen for its heat retaining quality. Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness has an old Admiral wearing a suit with Alpaca and references can be found throughout English literature. Once your antenna are honed this ultra fine wool pops up everywhere.

    Now craftworkers in Peru, whom Alpaca Joe met on his visit there last year, make cuddly toys and slippers out of the wool and a mini industry is growing up around this remarkable herd. There is a certain romance in the thought that an animal that is capable of standing on some of the worlds tallest mountains and withstanding the conditions of cold snow and wind finds itself adaptable to the Irish countryside.

    Not surprisingly, given their laid back nature, one type of Alpaca , the Suri, has a rasta fleece that sways gently as it moves. Just contemplating them is a balm to the soul, therapy in a hairstyle. When sheared once a year, they look slightly ridiculous and very alarmed at the transformation.

    Trekking with K2 Alpacas has to be booked six months in advance, such is the draw of these amazing creatures. A walk with a focus on a beautiful animal makes the experience of the rich lush landscape more compelling.

    Even the thought of the farm on the hill is a comforting one as we face into the storms and shortened days of winter, knowing that the Alpacas will be there patiently waiting for their next bunch of trekkers.

  • Spidery Futures

    I moved to an apartment in Ipsos Corfu two months ago.

    Outside was an awning to protect cars from the sun’s heat which can do damage to paintwork.

    Its a green piece of netting maybe twenty feet by thirty feet, suspended at the four corners by cords and elastic at a height of ten feet.

    During the month of May, we had very strong winds which tore one corner down. This was flapping in the wind for about a week, until I decided to take it upon myself to get up a ladder and tie the corner on. I was waiting for the neighbours to tell me to stop interfering but I soon realised no one cared and they were quite glad to have the awning up again.

    This lasted very well until the regular winds that come up in the afternoon here in Ipsos began to strike again and pulled it away from the edges. I climbed up again and reattached it, wondering whether my knot tying skills had completely deserted me. This time two corners had come down.

    Previously it had been attached by plastic ties and I carefully cut these off with a scissors and threw them away.

    So I was quite disappointed and discouraged to arrive home during this week to find it again has come down. I am tempted to give up and pull it down completely.

    Old Perithia, Corfu

    Then I had an idea while walking in the old town of Perithia with my friends. This old town had been a living place up to fifty years ago and then was abandoned for more accessible villages such as New Perithia, just down the road. So there are many ruined houses. More recently, renovations and landscaping has happened, in keeping with the original village. During the walk, we were totally struck by the diversity of nature living there. Bees, wild flowers, butterflies of all colours and then –Spiders! Hanging in strong webs across paths, high above our heads in trees and in among grasses where they had taken over the space between one clump and the next.

    Barley on Roadside

    We felt a sense of hope and really we just revelled in the feeling of nature continuing so abundantly all around us. Exotic flowers pushed up in unkempt fields and the sense of continuity was reassuring in a cosmic way. It contradicted the fear mongering of climate change and the existential worry and guilt we are loaded with about the future of the planet.

    It was a short link to my awning when I came home. Visions of Robert the Bruce in his freezing cave in Scotland watching a tiny spider weaving and remaking his web a thousand times flashed in to my mind as I resolved to get out the ladder and tie it up again.